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That Moment When You Realized How Much You've Missed

In Part 1 of Sodom and Gomorrah we walked through the story of Genesis 19. Along the way some details were pointed out that hopefully made you hear/read the story in a fresh way.

Here in Part 2 I want to make a few in-depth observations about this story.

Lot Was Well Informed If the city of Sodom was only about 900 people big, then someone who lived there for 20 years would certainly have been well acquainted with the people, the customs, the culture and the vibe of the city. 900 people is smaller than most people’s High Schools, and think about how much you “knew” about different cliques, groups, tribes, classes, etc. And that was only after being with those people for a couple years! So it is safe to imagine that Lot knew the men (and the women and the children) of Sodom well. Probably each one by name. It was not a large city

(Sidenote: if you checked out the archaeology sites from Part 1 the you may have discovered that fairly recently a site has been discovered that some are claiming were the Cities of the Plain, which included Sodom and Gomorrah. At these locations were burial sites with over 1 million buried bodies! This suggests that Sodom could have possibly been several hundred thousand people large! TOTALLY different from the more established and generally more accepted location and size of the other Sodom site. It’s an interesting exercise to read through this story with both sizes of cities in mind. Can you imagine 100,000 men and boys surrounding a house, all wanting some gang-rape action? Sometimes it is impractical, if not impossible, to read the Bible as literally as some would have you.)

Lot knew what happened to visitors because he knew the people of Sodom and probably even more likely because he had witnessed it before. Which is probably why the author of the story tells us that he strongly pressed them to stay at his place and not in the town square.

Entire Cities Can’t Probably Can't Be Gay The story goes to great lengths to tell us that every single man in the city of Sodom had stormed the house of Lot that night. Old men. Young men. Boys. And if the traditional understanding of this passage is that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of their rampant homosexuality, then are we really supposed to accept that in a city of 900 people, that 100% of the 450 men and boys were all gay?

Even the highest estimates on how often gay people are born are 1 in 10. And even in the most concentrated gay cities in the world (think San Francisco) there isn’t even close to the ratio of gay-to-straight men that this story suggests, should we accept that the men of Sodom were homosexuals. It is ridiculous to think that the men in this story were gay men. An entire male population of any city cannot be gay. And if they are, you probably wouldn’t see many children there.

Rape is Not the Same Thing as Consensual Sex I feel like this point shouldn’t have to be stressed, but these boys and men in Sodom wanted to rape the two visitors! Do I really have to explain that this is inherently and fundamentally and categorically a different thing altogether than a situation where one person who is attracted to another person of the same gender wants to have consensual sex?

That alone should give a person pause enough to consider why people think that homosexuality was the grave sin of these cities. If you are a person (and they do exist, trust me) who cannot separate in your mind gay-sex from rape, then you have different issues that I can’t help you with. Add to all of this the “gang” part of the story and you start to drift even farther away from anything having to do with homosexuality.

This atrocious offense the men and boys of Sodom wanted to commit against these visitors was not to inflict their homosexualness upon them. No, it was to gang rape them. And consider for a moment what’s going on: there are boys in this mob that want to actively partake in this rape. What kind of people create a society where young boys would join a mob in the hopes of participating in rape? This is not a city full of men and women who were born gay and discovered that they have attraction to their own gender… No, this is a city of foul and debase creatures so sick and demented that they’ve trained their children to rape visitors.

For pity’s sake, stop thinking of Sodom as a “city full of gay people” and start recognizing what the story is trying to tell you. It’s a city full of evil people. And again, if you shrug your shoulders and brush this off and just think, “what’s the difference?” then I don’t know what to say to you. That’s just sad. (Not to mention wrong and factually inaccurate).

It’s Not About Sex, It’s About Power and Control If you’ve ever watched Criminal Minds, or CSI, or any of those procedural dramas, you’ve probably come across episodes dealing with rape. And what do they always tell you (especially in Criminal Minds)? The attacker does not rape their victims because they are attracted to them (even if in some cases there is an attraction). Rape is not about sex, it’s about power and control. It’s about anger, hatred and sometimes vengeance. Even more so, gang rape is not about attraction or sex. It is about exerting your power and control over someone else.

We know that in ancient cultures it was a common practice for the victorious armies to rape the defeated armies (often the generals or other high ranking officials). This was not because the one army was full of gay men (well maybe it was, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell didn’t exist yet). No, it was a tactic that announced in no uncertain terms that “we won and we now control you… you are weak and we are strong.” In this story we have two visitors entering an evil-infested city at night. The men and boys of Sodom wanted not to have sex with them because they were attracted to them, but they wanted to show their power and control. Exert their might and show dominance.

When you consider it was gang-rape these men and boys wanted to do, and when you consider the cultural practice of raping outsiders and foreigners to show your power and control over them, it becomes harder and harder to argue a case that these men were homosexuals and God destroyed the cities because of homosexuality. It wasn’t about sex. It wasn’t about homosexuality. Rape has nothing to do with a loving relationship. It was about power and control. Big difference.

Gay Men Don’t Want to Have Sex with Women One thing traditionalists point to as evidence for their interpretation is that when Lot offered his daughters to the men they refused. Well, since they didn’t want to have sex with two girls, but instead wanted to have sex with two men, then clearly they must be gay. Case closed. Burn the place down.

Since I’ve already shown that this story has nothing to do with attraction and sex, I will point out here that what is often overlooked is the very nature of Lot’s offer. If Lot lived with these people for 20 years, and knew them all by name, and knew that they were gay (assuming the traditional perspective for the moment), then why on earth would he offer them two girls? If they are gay men wanting to have gay gang-rape sex with two other men, why would Lot think they would have any interest in his daughters? Very illogical. And before you can argue back, it should also be acknowledged that assuming (as I am) that Lot knew the men and knew they only wanted to rape the men out of a sickness and evilness for the sake of power and control (and twisted fun?), then it also wouldn’t make sense for him to offer his daughters. Because that would not have satisfied their desire to exercise dominance over the visitors. So whydid Lot offer his daughters? I don’t know. Perhaps it was a last ditch effort to protect the two men. Hospitality was such an incredibly huge thing for people in the ancient world (especially the Hebrew people) that he might have been trying any idea possible to prevent what clearly would have been the most egregious breach of hospitality. But if they were homosexuals, then Lot would have known they were homosexuals and therefore would not have offered his daughters as a consolation prize.

There’s Nothing Gay About This Story Nothing in Genesis 19 states or even suggests that the men and/or women of Sodom were people who were born with same-sex attractions.

Nothing in Genesis 19 states or even suggests that the men and/or women of Sodom were practicing a gay lifestyle.

If you were to have crashed on a desert island as a baby and grow up all by yourself with nothing but coconuts and a Bible that washed ashore, you would not read this story and come to the following conclusion: the people of Sodom were gay… and since they practiced homosexuality God clearly destroyed them.

No, the only way you can logically make a connection like that is if you already come to this story with the presupposition that homosexuality in any form is wrong, evil, sinful, etc. Then, and only then, would you read this story and in it find confirmation that God destroyed them because of homosexuality. But at that point, you are merely proof texting and practicing good ol’ eisegesis.

Genesis 19 is a story about (among other things) a society that was completely out of sync with the heart of God. A debase and deviant people, where they would regularly gang rape visitors. Where they would abuse their children in such fashions that they would also take part in acts of evil such as gang rape. A people deserving, in the eyes of the author, of the judgment of God. A conclusion supported by other Biblical authors.

But not because of homosexuality. The text just simply does not support such a conclusion. Not only that, but other Scripture passages give us even further insight in to why God acted out such harsh judgment on the peoples of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Speaking of “other Biblical writers” who weigh in on the destruction of Sodom, it will precisely be to that that we will turn in Part 3

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How do these observations strike you?Do they change the way you think or feel about Genesis 19?Do you find them compelling? Why or why not?